Categories

EVENTS

Call on the UN

To United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and to all member states of the UN:

In the 1980s, the Islamic Republic of Iran executed thousands upon thousands of political prisoners.

This mass-slaughter was among the worst crimes against humanity since the Second World War, a perspective espoused by Geoffrey Robertson, a ‘distinguished jurist’ member of the United Nations Justice Council.

It is true that many outside Iran did not know much about these mass murders, but the United Nations knew exactly what was happening inside Islamic Republic prisons. It knew about the mass slaughters. It knew about the secret burials. It knew about them immediately after they started. The United Nations willfully, intentionally ignored the slaughter of thousands upon thousands of political prisoners in Iran. Worse, the United Nations allowed its Special Representative, Reynaldo Galindo Pohl, to whitewash the situation in Iran, as is clearly documented in Robertson’s report on the prison massacres of 1988.

The United Nations, through its malignant neglect of the mass executions, tortures, and political imprisonments, and in shameful contradiction to its responsibility and mandate, gave the Islamic Republic official permission to continue its crimes against humanity with impunity. The United Nations was documentably complicit in those crimes against humanity.

And as a result of the UN’s permissiveness and complicity in the Islamic Republic’s crimes against humanity, so these crimes have continued to this day.

The Islamic Republic is still executing prisoners en masse, including political prisoners. And the UN has done nothing. The Islamic Republic couldn’t execute Sakineh, so they killed Shahla Jahed instead. And the UN has said nothing. The Islamic Republic couldn’t execute Habibollah Latifi, so they killed Ali Saremi and Ali-Akbar Siadat instead. And the UN has said nothing. In the face of the arrest of thousands in the wake of the 2009 uprisings, once again, the United Nations and its constituent governments do functionally nothing beyond issuing yet another “condemnation” of the atrocities of this criminal entity, the Islamic Republic of Iran – an entity which is a member state of the UN and which is bound by UN conventions including the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

It is time for the UN to stop issuing toothless, inactionable condemnations of this regime’s atrocities – condemnations that become meaningless the moment those for whom rape is a national policy, and gender apartheid a pillar of its constitution, are welcomed onto the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Condemnations that ring absurd the instant those who jail, torture and execute labor activists are given leave to set foot in the meetings of the International Labor Organization. Condemnations that become duplicitous the second that the German government defends the regime of mass-murderers by smashing the bones of Iranian opposition members crying out for freedom and justice. Condemnations that ring hollow as the Greek government repeatedly, cravenly sends its forces to attack Iranian political asylum seekers.

In the name of Habibollah Latifi, at risk of execution at any moment, Ja’afar Kazemi, Zeinab Jalalian, Yusef Nadarkhani, Shirko Maarefi, Hossein Khezri and many other political prisoners awaiting death in the regime’s torture houses while the United Nations fails to substantively, diplomatically sanction this regime;

In the name of Ali Saremi, Farzad Kamangar, Shirin Alam Houli, Mohsen Beikvand, Mona Mahmudinezhad, and tens of thousands of other political prisoners already killed, executed en masse while the UN has stood by, watching these crimes against humanity unfolding and doing nothing;

In the name of 500 nameless, paperless human beings slaughtered like animals in Vakil Abad prison in the past few months by this most monstrous of regimes, yet for whom no government – nor the United Nations – has yet raised an inquiry;

In the name of all political prisoners in the Islamic Republic’s torture houses: in the name of Nasrin Sotoudeh, Kamiar and Arash Alaei, Zahra Kazemi, Behrouz Javid Tehrani, Houtan Javid Kian, Reza Shahabi, Mansour Osanloo, Behnam Ebrahim-Zadeh;

In the name of the oceans of women and men, our sisters and brothers, who poured into the streets of Iran last year demanding freedom, equality, and a humane society, yet who were met with violence of barbaric proportions, detention, torture, rape and execution while the UN and its constituent governments watched and worried… not about the regime’s killings but about how to engage with Iran over its nuclear program;

We demand that the United Nations cease mouthing words without meaning, and start acting in support of the rights of Iranian people. It is time, once and for all, to withdraw your implicit and explicit support for this mass-murdering regime.

We demand immediate and mandatory free access of representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross to all prisons of the Islamic Republic, and first and foremost Evin and Rajaei Shahr (Gohardasht).

We demand unconditional and immediate release of all political prisoners.

We demand that the United Nations expel from its membership the Islamic Republic of rape, torture, stoning and execution, which has repeatedly and unabashedly violated virtually every principle in the UN Charter, not to mention the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Anything less is a betrayal of the people of Iran, and a signal that the Islamic Republic has the UN’s blessing to continue the slaughter and mass repression of 75 million Iranian people.

It is time for the UN to take appropriate action by refusing to further legitimize this regime.